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Funcom: Secret World 'not going free-to-play any time soon' [Updated]

Funcom's still riding the roller-coaster that is The Secret World, but as of today the Norwegian development firm has no plans to do away with the game's subscription fee. "No it's not going free-to-play any time soon," Funcom communications director Erling Ellingsen told Eurogamer. "There's currently no plans for making it free-to-play."

The game is in fact profitable as a subscription title, Ellingsen says, and creative director Ragnar Tornquist says that Funcom has content plans laid out through May of 2013. Tornquist and game director Joel Bylos spend a good bit of the interview talking about the challenges TSW faced last summer, from mediocre reviews to the need to launch and enable continued development to the stiff MMO competition.

"MMOs are hugely expensive, and of course Guild Wars 2 has sold a lot, and of course it's a big success. That game cost a lot of money and they're going to have to sell a lot of copies, especially without a subscription model. It is a dangerous path," Tornquist said. "It might be the right path for MMOs; as a consumer, as a player, I appreciate it. As a developer I'm with Joel in thinking that it is unfortunate for a lot of smaller companies or medium-sized companies."

[Update: TSW may not be going F2P soon, but it's certainly getting cheaper. Tipster Brant points out that the game is currently 50% off on Steam.]